In Line for Blessings and Sweets at Hindu Temple Canteen

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Harsha Chickballapur helping to feed his son, Tejas Chickballapur, 7, during Sunday lunch at the Temple Canteen in Flushing, Queens. On the right, jangiri, a popular sweet dish.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

By Shivani Vora

Oct. 28, 2016

On a recent Saturday afternoon at a Hindu temple in Queens, a crowd assembled there was spilling out onto Holly Avenue. It was two weeks before Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and the din from inside sounded more like a busy train station than a serene temple.

The crowd was mostly Indian — families with young children, couples and friends — but there were also many adventurous visitors at the Hindu Temple Society of North America, known to many as the Ganesha Temple. They occupied nearly all of the 300 seats in the brightly lit, no-frills room that looks like a high school cafeteria, with its pinkish Formica tables and folding chairs. Some waited for a gray-haired woman in a sari at a microphone to announce their numbers, a signal that their food was ready, while others were midway through their oversized dosas (thin rice crepes), mounds of tamarind rice and various mithais (sweets).

More still stood in the ever-growing line to order.

According to the temple’s president, Dr. Uma Mysorekar, the canteen feeds 4,000 people a week, but during the Diwali season, as many as 10,000 eat there in a week. The holiday, which falls on Oct. 30 this year, always inspires a celebratory and indulgent mood.

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The canteen feeds 4,000 people a week and as many as 10,000 during the Diwali season. Right, nan being made.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Practicing Hindus come to the temple to pray and ask the gods for their blessing and good luck. But this time of year, the burfis (fudgy confections of condensed milk and sugar) and badushas (cardamom-infused South Asian doughnuts) also have something to do with the crowds.

Ramesh Krishna, 45, who lives in Bohemia on Long Island, was there on a recent Saturday with his wife, Rupa, and their teenage daughter, Preeti. “I look forward to Diwali all year,” he said, “because I know the canteen has these special foods.”

In addition to the badusha, his favorite snack is the murukku, a crunchy and salty treat of rice and lentil flours, and that afternoon, he waited around an hour to place his family’s annual Diwali order. All told, Mr. Krishna’s list had 100 pieces of mithai and several packets of savory snacks to be distributed to relatives in honor of the holiday.

His order, however, was barely a blip compared with the 16,000 pieces of mithai and several hundred pounds of savory snacks handmade by the canteen’s dozen cooks around Diwali.

Besides those sweets, the season keeps the cooks busy turning out 5,000 to 6,000 dosas a week — triple the usual amount.

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Temple Canteen in Flushing, Queens; right, Sunday lunch.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Margot Solomon frequented the canteen when she worked at the Queens Botanical Garden, also in Flushing, and still visits every few months from her home in Nyack in the Hudson Valley to get her Indian food fix. On that Saturday, she came again and tried the spicy paneer dosa.

The canteen’s current selections are quite a contrast to its start in 1993, in a small basement room in the main temple building. There was one cook who made rava kesari, a soft pudding of semolina, sugar, cashews and ghee.

That rich treat is still a canteen staple. And Mr. Krishna and many other diners, despite their oversize mounds of tamarind rice and dosas, still managed to find the room to indulge in a generous scoop of rava kesari.

As the afternoon went on, the line to order grew, more people streamed in and the noise picked up. The mood at the canteen was upbeat.

Narendra Desai, of Teaneck, N.J., was there with his wife, Prema, as he is most Saturdays. “We pray for an hour and then we come here to eat,” he said. “It’s worth the wait.”